Paul Born December 6th 1941 - Woodhouse, Whitehaven, Cumbria, England. Played for the Kells
Amateur Rugby League Club before signing for Workington in 1961. Made his debut on 23 September 1961 for Workington
Town v Rochdale Hornets.

Paul Charlton at the Interview

Paul was inspired to play Rugby League whilst watching Dick Huddart play for Whitehaven, he decided
he wanted to emulate the G.B. Legend. At our interview with Dick (see details on this site) he mentioned he occasionally met
up with Paul who lives near him on the Gold Coast in Australia. We asked him to let Paul know we would like to talk to him
about doing an interview for the National Archive. Paul agreed and on his recent visit (September 2008) he sat down with us
to do this over 2 hour interview.

Paul was snapped up by Workington under the noses of his home town team Whitehaven
who never made him an offer to turn professional. In the 1963/64 season he made the Full Back spot his own and on 8th September
1965 made his debut for Cumberland who defeated Yorkshire and won the County Championship. He went on to play for Cumberland
32 times and actually captained the side on 20 occasions (a record), playing his last game on 5th September 1979 . He
was the selected to play for Great Britain and made his debut on 23rd October 1965 against New Zealand at Odsal stadium, Bradford.

In 1969 he joined the glamorous Salford Club, whos chairman was the wealthy Brian Snape. He had to wait until
the last qualifying match of the 1970 World Cup to make his second appearance for G.B. against New Zealand coming on as a
substitute. Paul then made the Great Britain Full Back role his own, appearing in another 17 matches , this included the 1972
World Cup rounds and playing full back in the World Cup Final winning team. In the 1972/73 season he scored a record 33 tries
for a Full Back, 31 for Salford and 2 for G.B.

Paul became a British Lion as a 1974 Tourist, playing for G.B.
in Australia and New Zealand. He played in 17 matches on the tour including all 6 Test Matches.

He returned to
Workington in 1975 as player coach and he guided them to promotion. When he played his last game at Widnes on the 20th December
1980 (aged 39) he had appeared in a Club record of 419 games scoring 110 tries and 77 goals. His career totals of 727
matches, scoring 223 tries. (To date no full back has come anywhere near this total of tries).